Lee County’s barrier islands see clean-up progress

Deputies toured some of Lee County’s barrier islands, like Matlacha and Fort Myers Beach, to better understand the damage they’re facing after Hurricane Milton.

WINK News reporter Annalise Iraola went to Matlacha on Wednesday to tag along with Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno.

Together, they surveyed the damage and progress of the clean-up on Matlacha, Fort Myers Beach and Hickory Island.

“I mean, this is serious, serious debris, concrete lifted. I mean, it’s just, there’s no words. You feel so bad, but you know, everybody’s out here,” said Marceno.

Dozens of workers were shoveling sand to get Margaritaville back in shape while Marceno’s corrections clean-up crews were busy on Matlacha.

When asked why they chose to help in Matlacha, Marceno said, “Matlacha had a tornado come through here, and they were heavily hit. We’ve been in Boca Grande, and we’re going to start using C4 throughout the entire county.”

On assessing recovery efforts on Hickory Island:

“You can see the water lines on this white fence. That shows you just how high that surge was. It shows you where the debris and the sand were, the reason things were impassable. But now, the positive point, right? The progress is unbelievable,” he said.

Now, Hickory Boulevard has sand mountains towering on either side, but the roads are passable.

“Cars are flowing. Roads are open. The progress here is phenomenal,” said Marceno.

Immediately after Milton, Fort Myers Beach’s roads looked like the beach with all of the sand.

Now, looking at Times Square one week after Milton, there is a lot of progress but even more work ahead.